This battle over the trademark on the App Store name dates back to 2011, when Amazon launched its Appstore for Android. Apple filed a lawsuit shortly after its launch, while Amazon (and Microsoft) believed the name to be too generic for Apple to trademark. A portion of Apple’s lawsuit was dismissed earlier this year, when they failed to show “real evidence of actual confusion” between the two storefronts.

Martin Glick, a lawyer for Amazon, said in an interview, “This was a decision by Apple to unilaterally abandon the case, and leave Amazon free to use ‘appstore.'”

“We no longer see a need to pursue our case,” Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said. “With more than 900,000 apps and 50 billion downloads, customers know where they can purchase their favorite apps.”

Now that the two companies have gotten that out of the way, they can move on to more important things.

[@Mike] I completely agree! But I think the difference in this particular case is that the term “App Store” is rather vague. Add that to the fact that Amazon actually calls it the “Amazon Appstore” and not simply “Appstore” or even worse, “App Store,” Apple might have been overreacting on this one just a little.

Mike

Don’t underestimate the importance of issues like this–would Apple’s business have taken off as much as it has without the development, use and protection of trademarks such as Mac, iPod, and the “I” universe? If you have any question, compare to other manufacturers who use product names such as WR-678YTY . . . .